ST. JOSEPH, La. (AP) — A man whose family owns astore across the street from a bank branch in ruralLouisiana took three bank employees hostageTuesday, then released one of them nine hourslater as negotiations continued to secure the others'freedom, police said.

Louisiana State Police superintendent Col. MikeEdmonson confirmed the release of a female bankteller late Tuesday. He said authorities were talkingwith her about her ordeal.

Meanwhile, talks continued with the hostage-taker,identified only as a 20-year-old man from thenortheastern-Louisiana community.

"It's a fluid, active scene," Edmonson told reporters."We still have two hostages in there and a hostagetaker."

Police said they have no reason to believe anycaptive has been hurt.

"We feel like we're being productive," Tensas ParishSheriff Rickey Jones said late Tuesday. "Thenegotiators are doing a good job."

Earlier Tuesday, Edmonson said that the man hadbeen calm and had made some demands, but hewould not describe the demands or further identifythe gunman.

"We're still working with him to determine exactlywhat his intent is," Edmonson said.

The gunman, carrying at least a handgun, took twowomen and a man captive about 12:30 p.m. at theTensas State Bank branch in St. Joseph, and anegotiator talked with him throughout theafternoon, said Trooper Albert Paxton, a state policespokesman.

The red-brick bank is just off Louisiana Highway 128,a rural stretch of road cutting through cornfields. Itis across the street from Trak convenience store,which the gunman's family owns, in St. Joseph, theseat of Tensas Parish.

Edmonson warned that the standoff could last forsome time.

"Our utmost concern right now more than anythingelse is the safety of those hostages," he said.

More law enforcement people and equipmentwould be brought in, he said then. "We've got to beprepared to act," Edmonson said.

The FBI, U.S. marshals, state police and local lawenforcement officers were among thoseresponding to the standoff.

Edmonson provided few details about the gunman,except to say he is originally from California andthat his family settled in the Louisiana communityand opened a convenience store.

"We're negotiating with him," Edmonson told CNN."We're talking with him. We've been on the phonewith him. We actually talked to the hostages there.Nothing is more important to me than the safety ofthose hostages."

He said some of the suspect's relatives tried toapproach the scene earlier, and that authoritieswere now working with them.

Mayor Edward Brown said that, as a general rule,the town's most notable crimes are the occasionaldrug busts, and some residents are so frightenedabout what's happening that they've left town."It's a quiet town. Very little crime. So this isamazing," Brown said.

The town of 1,200 is near the Mississippi River,downriver from Vicksburg, Miss., in northeastLouisiana.

Paxton said he believed that the Trak conveniencestore was evacuated, but there were few otheroccupied buildings within the perimeter that statepolice and the FBI set up.

Richardo (rik-AHR-doh) Miles, a 25-year-oldfarmworker, said he lives about a half-mile from thebank. He sat on his bicycle at a roadblock near anabandoned hardware store about a quarter-mileaway, watching the activities of dozens of firstresponders, including paramedics and heavilyarmed men in camouflage.

A helicopter circled overhead in the overcast sky fora time as men, some carrying assault rifles,gathered in the street in front of the bank. Lawenforcement trucks also hauled in constructionlights, apparently to prepare in case the standofflasted into the night.

Late Tuesday, authorities had received a request forfood from those inside the bank building.The sight of the state police bomb squad and SWATteam unnerved many people in the sleepy farmtown, Miles said.

"It's kind of startling for the residents. We're notaccustomed to this kind of activity," said Miles."Some people are pretty scared. They're nervous."

Tensas Parish lies along Mississippi River, but St.Joseph is about a mile from the riverbank andabout two miles from a 3,000-acre oxbow lake thatlong ago was one of the river's bends. Nearly one-third of the parish's 5,000 residents live under thefederal poverty level, according to U.S. Censusfigures. Farmland makes up more than 45 percentof the 600-square-mile parish, with most of it incotton, feed grains, soybeans and wheat.